Unnecessary Quotes

Okay. This is just “funny” and “disturbing.” And now it’s on my sidebar.

What do you “think”?

Run Pee

I’ve given you cool places to piddle, here, here and here, and now I can give you the best TIMES to piddle.

I know. Does my generosity ever end?!

There’s a new website and iPhone app that tells you the best time to run to the restroom during a movie.

Here’s a classic … Raiders of the Lost Ark. You can see by the arrows on the yellow bar there are two good times to scurry into the lobby to piddle.

If you want to see what you’ll miss, you can unscramble the text in the big yellow block.

For those of you taking your tiny bladders with you to the theater this weekend, here’s a, ahem, heads up for Inglourious Basterds. Four handy pee times available.

You’re welcome!

Is this a service you’d use? You know, if you had a tiny bladder.

BeckyLand Investigation

Something funny went on in BeckyLand this week. I had a spike in my viewers one day, which always makes me curious. So I investigated.

Here are the search terms people used to find my blog that day ….

• linear wrinkles in one or both lobes    21

• funny books for kids            4

• earlobe linear crease  3

• linear wrinkles on earlobe            3

• earlobes with linear creases + photo            3

• funny boot camp t shirts            2

• how do you know you have a tapeworm            2

• linear wrinkles earlobes            2

• goofy irish song music video from the 80        2

• linear wrinkles earlobe 2

So you don’t have to do the math yourself, that’s 34 people who searched out information about earlobe wrinkles. (And apparently passed on the link to my blog.)

Earlobe. Wrinkles.

In the greater scheme of the world population, that’s not many people, I know. But in the lesser scheme of people doing cyber searches, it seems a bit extreme. Even for BeckyLand. [BTW, did you notice the people searching for tapeworm information? I get someone every day. Every Day. You didn't believe me, did you?]

And it happened again the next day to a lesser extent …

• funny books for kids            4

• trident seal pin            3

•  tapeworm            2

• linear wrinkles earlobes            2

• broken pinky toe       2

• black girls kiss white men            2

• linear wrinkles earlobe photo            2

• linear wrinkles in earlobes            2

• richest fictional characters            2

• man having baby    2

• navy seals iraq 2009    1

Here’s the actual post, Listen To Your Body Even When It Says Stupid Stuff, in case you missed it. Clearly, it’s cutting-edge info. You’re welcome.

Unfortunately, I’m sure I disappointed the curious folks searching for “man having baby” and the interracial smooching.

How ’bout you … would you rather read about “linear wrinkles on earlobe” or “man having baby”? But more importantly, go to the mirror and take a peek at your earlobes. See any wrinkles?

Wordnesday

Increase your vocabulary using Urban Dictionary.

• blogorrhea — To write a blog entry just for the sake of posting an entry, not because you have done anything interesting today.

“I couldn’t really think of anything good to blog about, so my last post was real blogorrhea.”

• hostage lunch — Meal purchased by the company, often pizza, and delivered for employees who bosses require them to attend a meeting or work over their lunch hour.

“I was planning on running some errands over my lunch hour, but the VP is keeping us in a meeting. At least he ordered us hostage lunch.”

Now, write them five times and use them in a sentence.

Space Do-Overs

Let me start by saying as much as I love Star Trek, I don’t care about space, the final frontier. I don’t gaze into the night sky and wonder about infinity. I’m not curious about other planets or black holes or if Mars has ice. Honestly, the only Milky Way I care about is covered in chocolate and has a delicious fluffy center.

But I will give a shout out to JB, my favorite rocketeer, and to Hans, my favorite astrophysicist, despite the fact they’re much too busy and smart to visit BeckyLand. Besides, they’ll only argue with me about this. And have I mentioned they’re smarter than I am?

We — the collective American we, because let’s face it, nobody within a moon rock’s toss of BeckyLand had anything to do with it — went to the moon 40 years ago in a race to beat Russia up there. Just to say we did it. Like eating snails. Or applying to Princeton. Or getting a job.

But c’mon. Really?

Buzz Aldrin thinks we should go to Mars. Tom Stafford, commander of Apollo 10 agreed and said, “All of us here are pretty much convinced that Mars is a goal to shoot for.”

Buzz said, “Apollo 11 was a symbol of what a great nation and a great people can do if we work hard and work together.”

But neither Buzz nor Stafford has explained to me why we should go to Mars. What would we get out of it? What would be the purpose? To say we did it? How redundant.

I can’t find a list of the tangible benefits we’ve received from the moon shot and all the shuttle trips. What useful, practical information have we learned from space in the last 40 years? As I said, I’m not at all interested in the cosmos, but I can understand there’s lots of cool stuff out there. But for the price tag, shouldn’t all of humanity benefit from the knowledge?

The only thing I ever hear about are the spacewalks at the international space station to fix things. Remember the toolbelt that floated away? And the $15.6 million space-station toilet that broke? I can only imagine the horror of dodging slow-mo space poo floating around.

Absolutely unrelated to my argument, but I read something interesting recently. There are six current astronauts who weren’t even alive when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. One is Christopher Cassidy, a crew member aboard the space shuttle Endeavor. Okay. Palate cleansed, back to arguing.

President Obama used the moon landing anniversary as an opportunity to inspire learning about math and science. But surely there are ways to do that without spending a gazillion dollars on the space program. Right now NASA’s budget is $20 billion, which is less than half of 1 percent of the federal budget. But still. Does that make it cheap? $20 billion can go a long way to fixing the health insurance mess. Or to actually teach math and science rather than just “inspiring” kids in those areas. It can get a lot of clunkers off the highways, shore up a lot of crumbling bridges, and harness a lot of wind power.

Can we really justify NASA continuing the space program when we have so many devastating problems to conquer here on terra firma?

I think the next giant leap should actually do some good, not just the squishy “we beat the Russians” or “the human spirit needs to explore.”

These are the three themes I continue to hear regarding space exploration …

• the U. S. needs it to remain globally competitive
• the U.S. has “security interests” in being a world leader in space exploration
• and states need to maintain their local “space economy,” building rockets and such.

Security interests in space feels ominous to me.

I really only understand that last one. It reminds me of the recent fight about the F-22s. The Pentagon didn’t want them, the President didn’t want them, the taxpayers didn’t want them. But Congress wanted them because component parts were built in their states. Smells über-porky.

An independent group is “reviewing NASA’s human spaceflight program and should present its findings in August.”

So these are my questions:
1. Should NASA return to the moon, head straight to Mars, or neither?
2. What do we achieve from space travel? What are the tangible benefits?

Help me understand.

Celebrity Guest Bloggers

How did you enjoy my Celebrity Guest Bloggers while I was playing hooky?

You might be interested to know that I went to Chapman College with both Mike Sigalas and George Waters. I attended many parties with both these guys, including Halloween …

There’s Mike in his gas station attendant (trucker?) duds. And me in my shepherd’s robe. And George right in front. And flappers and military personnel and a wise guy. Oh, wait. This wasn’t Halloween. It was Choose Your Internship Day. Chapman had some odd requirements back in their halcyon years.

And another, more formal party … maybe this one was Halloween. My memory just isn’t what it used to be.

See George?

If you know anyone else I should highlight in the future, send their links privately to me at AmpersandPress@aol.com with “Guest Blogger” in the subject line.

So … how did you enjoy reading columns from George and Mike?

How To Name Your Baby

My kids are all home at the same time so I’m taking the opportunity to step out of BeckyLand for awhile and play with them. But while I’m staycationing, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share another of my very funny writer friends with you.

I was going to introduce George, but he does it so much better than I could. I’m stepping away now, and closing the door ever-so-gently to give you some privacy.

Hi, I’m George Waters.

I’m what they call an “award winning” humor writer. I write a weekly humor column for newspapers, as well as funny freelance essays for other publications and Web sites. I live in Southern California in a flat, baking valley named for San Gabriel who, by all appearances at least, was a saint. I have a wife, a school-age daughter and son, and a rat terrier (rhymes with “rat Perrier”) named Skipper. He is not named Skipper due to any nautical expertise (although he knows his way around a jib), but rather because when he walks at high speed his hind legs actually skip like a happy, recently-promoted middle manager. Some day I will post a video of it here.

I invite you to visit my full-on column-oriented Web site. I built the whole site myself using my mad html skills, some Javascript and an adze. Even if for no other reason, you will want to visit the site because it has a page where you can give me back the hair I had in high school. Do it now, it’s not like you’re getting any work done anyway.

How to name your baby: a curmudgeon’s guide by George Waters

Naming a child is probably the most important thing a parent will ever do for him, unless you count teaching the kid to drive stick. But if you check the parade of baby names people registered last year with Social Security you will see that some parents should not even be allowed this simple task, which also makes you wonder just how safe our roads are.

I would never name a child Chastity, for example, mainly because the kid’s existence kind of undercuts the whole concept there. But if you are going to do it, because you are a fan of irony or something, at least spell it right. Social Security says there is some poor kid out there whose parents named her “Chasity.”

I wish Congress would pass a law requiring all hospitals to hire a spell-checker. This would not only save a lot of kids pain, it would provide rare employment to thousands of otherwise unemployable English grad students.

Next priority: allow only uniform spellings. Allowed (though regrettable) name: Destiny. Disallowed names: Destinee, Destini. Please, parents, let’s not add insult to injuree.

In fact, many psychologists say your name is destiny. A name may potentially cripple a child’s chances for success right off the bat. Show me a CEO or a Supreme Court Justice named Rufus. Show me.

List for me the Senators named Amos, Rayne or Dixie. I am not suggesting everyone march lock-step in the cadence of Emma, Jacob and Madison (or the cadence of Cadence, which somebody named his child last year), but one should use some common sense when setting the tone for a child’s life.

George’s Rule #1: No nouns. No Charity, Patience, Hope, Chance, Essence, Heath, Stone, Blaze, Hunter, Case, Sterling, Meadow; you get the idea. I will allow Borscht. That is my only noun. Borscht. If you’ve got the guts, go for it.

George’s Rule #2: No geography. No Zaire, India, Memphis, Phoenix, Montana, Dakota, London, Ireland, etc. I get it. You conceived the child there. We get it. If I had followed that rule myself, my daughter would be named Ojai now. Let’s all be thankful for Rule #2.

George’s Rule #3: No wacky first/last name combos. If your last name is Cheezetake, do not name your boy Phil E. Seriously, Cheezetake is unfortunate enough on its own. If your last name is Jakissmyhiney, do not name your child Heywood. The judge overseeing the shooting spree trial will not find it as funny as you did.

If you absolutely must name your son Sage, as somebody did last year, please do me a personal favor and name your daughter Tarragon. If you just have to name your kid Darwin, as somebody did last year, please, please, please name his brother Jesus. Then send me a picture of the look on their Sunday school teacher’s face.

If I had no conscience about the grief a kid’s name might cause him, I would love to name my child “Thiscentury.” Think of the possibilities! I could say things like “Hey, are you gonna finish those Brussels sprouts, Thiscentury?” Or “How about you get that homework done sometime, Thiscentury.”

There might be some kind of benefit to forcing your child to toughen up early to abuse like this. That is the only way I can imagine forgiving the parents who, last year, named their little girl Karma. Let us just hope that her last name was not Issabitch.

So, parents out there who are on the cusp of saddling your child with a moniker forever, remember: Journey is the name of a band. Period.

Showcase House of the Male/Female Divide

My kids are all home at the same time so I’m taking the opportunity to step out of BeckyLand for awhile and play with them. But while I’m staycationing, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share another of my very funny writer friends with you.

I was going to introduce George, but he does it so much better than I could. I’m stepping away now, and closing the door ever-so-gently to give you some privacy.

Hi, I’m George Waters.

I’m what they call an “award winning” humor writer. I write a weekly humor column for newspapers, as well as funny freelance essays for other publications and Web sites. I live in Southern California in a flat, baking valley named for San Gabriel who, by all appearances at least, was a saint. I have a wife, a school-age daughter and son, and a rat terrier (rhymes with “rat Perrier”) named Skipper. He is not named Skipper due to any nautical expertise (although he knows his way around a jib), but rather because when he walks at high speed his hind legs actually skip like a happy, recently-promoted middle manager. Some day I will post a video of it here.

I invite you to visit my full-on column-oriented Web site. I built the whole site myself using my mad html skills, some Javascript and an adze. Even if for no other reason, you will want to visit the site because it has a page where you can give me back the hair I had in high school. Do it now, it’s not like you’re getting any work done anyway.

Showcase House of the Male/Female Divide by George Waters

Interior decoration has never been one of my interests, probably due to a genetic deficiency I have, called “gender.” Chicks dig it, though.

For proof, just sit and watch the droves of well-groomed ladies pouring off the shuttle buses at the Pasadena Showcase House. This celebration of state-of-the-art interior design, held at a different spectacular mansion each spring, boasts a women-to-men visitor ratio, based on my unscientific observations, of about 100 to 1, and the one is inevitably a septuagenarian in a salmon-colored golf shirt. Or me.

Women invariably tour the house in pairs, because dishing the dirt over a designer’s choices with a man is basically a monologue. That is because women and men see interior design differently; women see infinite possibilities, while men see a very long summer kissing drywall. But I agreed to attend with my wife out of a morbid curiosity over what the new “black” is.

Plus, Brownie Points never hurt when you are thinking about buying a new car.

You enter the mansion through something called a “port cochere” (“costly porch”). Before entering, however, since nature was calling, I was glad the event planners had also placed a row of “port au potties” off to the side of the house.

Each room in the manse has been completely re-imagined and decorated by different designers, some of whom stand amidst their creation to answer questions, and are very proud of their work. Therefore, based on my personal experience, I do not recommend phrasing your question like this: “So what’s up with the big ball of moss?” It might be taken as mockery, when intended as good-natured ribbing, which some artistes apparently just don’t “get.”

“Concept” is the main idea of interior design, I know, but please do not tell me that it is necessary to stifle a heartfelt giggle when I see, in a tiny bathroom, a chandelier hanging over a toilet. I’m sorry. That is just funny.

I am clearly a bad audience for “concept,” and I blame my parents for not endowing me with ovaries.

The breakfast room had lovely china plates mounted to the walls just below the ceiling, to give a clue to anyone with any doubt about what a dining room is for. This made me curious, though, just what I would find hot-glued to the bedroom walls.

Outside I came across a little bonsai tree inside a birdcage, but there was no one to explain, so I was left to assume it symbolized man’s enslavement of nature. Or a love of quiet pets.

The sun room ceiling appeared to be paneled with tan fur of some kind, which was striking, but made me feel a bit like I was inside a pony. The library’s most intriguing feature was the stack of books in its fireplace. I have to admit I do this too, when I run out of shelf space, except I doubt if the designers ever light theirs.

In the laundry room, sitting atop the giant, gleaming dryer were four petite vases, each with a tiny orchid, a nice touch, but I have to say that has so been done to death on my dryer at home.

As I left the mansion, the only other man at the place, Mr. Salmon Shirt, caught my eye pleadingly, as his wife led him into the big-decorative-arts-shop-under-a-tent in the garden. I looked away. There are some things a man should never watch another man endure.

George Twitters

My kids are all home at the same time so I’m taking the opportunity to step out of BeckyLand for awhile and play with them. But while I’m staycationing, I thought I’d also take the opportunity to share another of my very funny writer friends with you.

I was going to introduce George, but he does it so much better than I could. I’m stepping away now, and closing the door ever-so-gently to give you some privacy.

Hi, I’m George Waters.

I’m what they call an “award winning” humor writer. I write a weekly humor column for newspapers, as well as funny freelance essays for other publications and Web sites. I live in Southern California in a flat, baking valley named for San Gabriel who, by all appearances at least, was a saint. I have a wife, a school-age daughter and son, and a rat terrier (rhymes with “rat Perrier”) named Skipper. He is not named Skipper due to any nautical expertise (although he knows his way around a jib), but rather because when he walks at high speed his hind legs actually skip like a happy, recently-promoted middle manager.

I invite you to visit my full-on column-oriented Web site. I built the whole site myself using my mad html skills, some Javascript and an adze. Even if for no other reason, you will want to visit the site because it has a page where you can give me back the hair I had in high school. Do it now, it’s not like you’re getting any work done anyway.

Famous Twitters Down Thru History by George Waters

Even if you do not own a computer, you have surely heard of “Twitter” by now, a program which allows you to type an instant, live message to people you used to just pick up the phone and talk to.

Twitter suggests that your messages, which are limited to 140 characters out of sadism, should answer the question, “What are you doing right now?” It is a shame that Twitter did not exist in centuries past. Come imagine with me the “tweets” which might have resulted:

Shakespeare: Anne, wilt be home near 7. I burneth my personal records and misspelleth my name on sonnets. This shall driveth historians nuts. lol, Will.

Copernicus: Sweetie, guess what? The earth is not the center of the universe. Press my sackcloth, will you? I’m going to take a beating on this one.

Einstein: Hans, I just nailed “D.” I solved “A,” “B” and “C” yesterday. If I can just figure out what “E” equals by Friday, Vegas here we come, baby.

Patrick Henry: Dearest Sarah, what do you think of this—”Give me liberty or else!” It does not quite have the ‘ring’ I was hoping for. Thoughts?

Pythagoras: O.K., O.K. No need to get your tweets all atwitter. It’s just a theorem.

George Washington: Am crossing the Delaware just to get this portrait painter off my case. Over and back, then he promises to leave. Save me a knish.

Paul Revere: Was it ‘One if by land and two if by sea’? Or ‘Two if by land and’…He held up two, right? It was two? Which one was two? Land? Arrgh!

John Hancock: Just signed the Declaration. Franklin goes “John, now your name will doubtless become synonymous with ’signature.’” (I think he was drinking).

King Tut: Dude, guess where I’m standing. In my own tomb! Your design guys did an awesome job. But the baboon theme is SO 1400 B.C.—Rethink?

Chaucer: That of all the floures in the mede, Thanne love I most these floures white and rede, Suche as men callen daysyes in her toune. Twittre rooles!

Hemingway: So I’m thinking “The Sun Also Rises.” But the more I stare at it, the less it makes sense. The Sun. Also. Rises. Am I just being weird?

Thomas Edison: Light bulb a success. Candlelight now obsolete. Sorry, honey. But I’ll be home early. Let’s run a bubble bath and make believe it’s yesterday.

Alexander Graham Bell: “Mr. Watson, come here. I need you.” They’re putting it in the history books! I should have said “Watson, where’d you hide the Schlitz?”

Charles Darwin: Just had great idea for raising expedition funds: A fish with legs. “Darwin” inside. We’ll sell a million to put on the backs of carriages!

Karl Marx: Vladmir, I need this speech ASAP. I am trying to read your handwriting—”Religion is the opposite of the masses?” I don’t get it. Call me.

Sigmund Freud: Martha, am at the office. Just discovered all behavior is based on repressed sexual urges. Um, call the agency and get me a new secretary.

Neil Armstrong: Woot! I just stuck the landing. There is a definite odor of green cheese, though. Buzz smells it too. Houston, I’m kind of freaked.

Confucius: Ming, I’m at the publisher. He turned down my book. Said I need to build a following first. Does your uncle still own that fortune cookie company?

Personally, I think if you need to know what I am doing right now, you probably have too much time on your hands, and besides, I would only be making up something more interesting for your benefit.

(O.K., if you do have too much time on your hands, you can follow my tweets, embellished as they are. But I will be really disappointed in you.)

Becky here … I saw this in the newspaper the other day. Seems you were on to something, George!

Pre-presidential tweets from the past
By The Associated Press
BOSTON — It seems John Quincy Adams was way ahead of his time. A high school student touring the sixth U.S. president’s archives recently noticed his bite-size diary entries looked a lot like tweets.

His updates are concise enough to put Twitter experts to shame: “Thick fog. Scanty Wind. On George’s Bank. Lat: 42-34. Read Massillon’s Careme Sermons 2 & 3. Ladies are Sick.” This one, from Aug. 6, 1809, comes in at 109 characters, well under Twitter’s 140-character limit.

The entries can be found at twitter.com/JQAdams_MHS.

Mike’s Kind of Music

My kids are all home at the same time so I’m taking the opportunity to step out of BeckyLand for awhile and play with them. But while I’m staycationing, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share my very funny writer friends with you.

Here’s another one from Mike Sigalas.

Mike taught writing for a decade at a number of colleges and universities, including the University of South Carolina, the Citadel Military College, Orangeburg-Calhoun College, and others. He holds degrees from the University of South Carolina and California State University, Chico.

His other jobs included working as a blood bank distribution specialist, college-town rock singer, newspaper and magazine editor, Disneyland Jungle Cruise skipper, and surf-band roadie.

He is the author of Moon Handbooks to South Carolina, North Carolina, Coastal Carolinas, and Charleston & Savannah, and co-author of Moon Handbooks Smoky Mountains.

My Kind of Music by Mike Sigalas

Music is a sore spot with me right now–I subscribed to one of those satellite radio networks only to find out that their vaunted “Acapella Mime” station is basically a gyp. (Apparently, half the time, the performers aren’t even real mimes, just chronically reticent Frenchmen.)

Even worse: another full quarter of the station’s programming has been subcontracted out to other mimes in places like Japan. So here I am, thinking I’m listening to professional French mimes, when actually, I’m paying to listen to Japanese mimes. And I can’t even speak Japanese! Granted, for an additional charge, the network provides English dubbing, but the poor syncing distracts more than it helps.

(Not to disparage the Japanese. Those fellows have suffered so much over the years, what with Godzilla, Mothra, Ghidira, and so on. God bless ‘em, I say.)

Weren’t we talking about music?

Poorly-dubbed mimery aside, musically I’m your average guy…I’ll immediately perk up my ears, pick up, purchase, and/or illegally download anything featuring flutes or fifes, and perhaps piccolos–but only if played with the traditional British fingering. (And really, isn’t EVERYTHING better with the traditional British fingering?)

Other than that…I’m a sucker for anything by artists named Brian. Excepting the later, drug-fueled work of Brian “Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Polka-Dot Bikini” Hyland–but I’m sure everybody will back me up on that. Also, as part of the Hee-Haw Generation, I automatically dig the music of any band whose name ends with the words, “Mountain Boys.” Blue Ridge Mountain Boys, Smoky Mountain Boys…I don’t care if it’s Da Compton Mountain Boyz….just hand me my cloggin’ shoes and I’m a-ready.